Felpham grandmother celebrates her 105th birthday

Eileen Pickford, who has 11 grandchildren, was born in the Falkland Islands on August 20, 1910.

Moving to Littlehampton at the age of 12, she attended St Catherine’s School before going to London in her 20s, where she worked at a court dressmaker in Knightsbridge before helping to open a restaurant in Chelsea.

Her daughter Veronica said: “Eileen enjoys very good health, loving every minute of the time she spends with her children, three grandchildren, five great grandchildren and three great, great grandchildren.”

In February 1936 Eileen met her first husband Horace Charles Wilson, or ‘Tiggy’, who said it was ‘love at first sight’.

They married in 1936 and had four children, Angela, Christopher, Veronica and Philip.

After serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France during the second world war, Horace returned home where he stayed until his death at the age of 59 in October 1968.

Not one to slow down, Eileen travelled over the next few years and married John Pickford in 1976. John passed away in 2008.

Eileen now lives at Oakland Court Residential Home in Felpham.

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